How Does Cloud Computing Really Fit into Your Business Strategy?

Most IT leaders know the cloud is where things are heading—but many still aren’t sure how to make it work best for them. It doesn’t help that defining and implementing a cloud strategy can often be a bit of a convoluted process either.

Analyst research firm Gartner recently developed a report outlining a series of best practices to guide your cloud adoption strategy. Logicalis is making complimentary access to this important guide available – see below for details.

In its report, Gartner outlines three areas of focus and suggests that a playbook may work better than a more formal, comprehensive initiative:

Adopting an outcome perspective

Defining your guiding principles

Determining what “cloud” means to you

Each step builds upon the previous stage and also comes with the need for risk assessment, for which Gartner has developed a “cloud risk framework.”

The first step, “adopting an outcome perspective,” recommends that organizations focus on the purpose or outcome they expect from their cloud initiatives well before implementation. This calls for carefully surveying the organization’s existing cloud usage and current applications for cloud readiness.

The second step, “defining your guiding principles,” focuses on how the organization wants the implementation to occur. How will cloud services be acquired by the organization? How will they be managed? How will they be restricted? The report also discusses implications of exiting a cloud service and how to handle disaster recovery scenarios.

The third and final step, “determining what cloud means to you,” is a method for making decisions about what the organization feels is most important. This step deals with a number of metrics which IT organizations must measure for success, including cost savings, efficiency and demand response.

In the end, the journey to cloud adoption must be unique for each organization to best meet its specific requirements and expected outcomes.